Cairo & Nile Delta: Includes the Pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and El-Fayoum

by Vanessa Betts

Overview

Concise and affordable, this guide features essential information on Cairo’s top sights and the surrounding Nile Delta. Features excellent information on the city’s top museums and sights as well as an Essentials section with practical advice to help travellers plan their trip, detailed maps of the city’s popular districts, up-to-date listings of where to eat, sleep and have fun.

• Includes detailed coverage of Cairo

• Features advice on day-trips to the surrounding countryside, making it an ideal companion

• Up-to-date recommendations of great places to stay and eat

• Detailed street maps to help travellers navigate their way around the city

• Slim enough to fit in pocket

• Explores beyond the city limits to the Nile Delta

Loaded with practical advice on getting around as well as detailed information on the city and region’s top attractions, this Footprintfocus guide will help travellers experience the real Egypt, without weighing them down. The content of the Footprintfocus Cairo and Nile Delta guide has been extracted from Footprint's Egypt Handbook.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781908207760
Publisher:	Bradt Travel Guides Ltd
Publication date:	08/09/2013
Series:	Footprint Focus
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Vanessa Betts is a writer and editor from England. She went to India in 1997, as the first stop on a round-the-world ticket, and then found out that nowhere else could quite compare. After time spent living and working in Australia, Egypt and England she has been based in India, chiefly in Kolkata, since March 2006. Vanessa now lives in Israel where she’s updating Footprint’s new guide to the country.

Read an Excerpt

At the crossroads of Asia, Africa and Europe stands the metropolis

of Cairo, the largest city in the Middle East and Africa and one of

the most populous in the world. The Nile runs like a vein through

the centre. On either bank extraordinary remains of civilizations

past – thousands of years of pharaonic, Coptic and Islamic history –

mingle with the dwellings and lives of modern Egyptians. A walk

around Cairo is a walk through thousands of years: from the

colossal Pyramids of Giza at the edge of the Western Desert to

the Old Coptic Quarter on the east bank; along the alleys of

Islamic Cairo, gushing with life and hundreds of ancient

monuments, to the downtown quarter where the stunning

façades of 19th-century buildings tell of the profound influence

of European occupiers. And in between, the ancient monuments

and modern buildings,souksandahwas(coffee houses), bazaars

andfelafelstalls fill every crevice.

Pyramids in romantically ruinous state are scattered to the

south of Cairo, while the north is dotted with the desolate

remains of pharaonic cities. The famous Step Pyramid of

Saqqara in the vast necropolis of the early pharaohs is worth

visiting before going on to Giza, to see the development from

the simple underground tomb to the audacious concept of the

Pyramid of Cheops. Further south, the harsh desert gives way to

the beautiful pseudo-oasis of El-Fayoum, a lush expanse of fields

and palms offering sanctuary to some of the richest birdlife in

Egypt. Ptolemaic temples, the artists’ enclave of Tunis and the

ultramarine waters of Lake Qaroun all nestle on the edge of the

arid western desert only 90 minutes from the city.

Beyond Cairo, the two main tributaries of the Nile continue

northwards to meet the Mediterranean near Damietta and

Rosetta, where Ottoman houses, winding medieval lanes and the

picturesque expanses of the Nile are a pleasant surprise. On either

side, and between the two branches, the green and fertile plains

fan out to create – with the help of some of the world’s oldest and

most efficient irrigation systems – Egypt’s agricultural heartland.